mfioretti.com

The OpenDocument Format (ODF) Plugfest gathers together the most important international experts in terms of digital office documents interoperability. At the March 2010 edition in Granada I gave a talk about the proprietary traps that can be hidden inside ODF documents, preventing interoperability. I also reported in detail what happened at the Plugfest in two separate articles:

• Notes from ODF Plugfest in Granada, Day One
• Final Notes from the ODF Plugfest in Granada

This is the talk I gave at the First international assembly of the Open Learning Exchange (OLE) in Kathmandu. Due to server space constraints, only a PDF version is available here. If you want the original version in OpenDocument format, please download it from the OLE website

The Open Learning Exchange (OLE) is an international organization to whose goal is to make Quality Universal Basic Education accessible by 2015 to hundred millions of children worldwide. I have been invited to participate and speak to the first OLE international assembly in Kathmandu. I have already reported about what I learned at the assembly in these articles:

• E-Learning for Kids... and everybody else
• One hour with the XO laptop in a Nepali school
• Plan for Universal Basic Education discussed in Kathmandu
• TeacherMate, the great educational minicomputer that didn't want to exist

The subject of my own talk was "Quality Education in a Digital World".

This is the talk given at the Kosova Software Freedom Conference 2009 about "E-government, digital rights, equal opportunities: how can Free Software help developing countries?". Only the PDF version is available here, due to web server space constraint. If you need the original, editable OpenDocument version just request it by email to marco . at . digifreedom dot net

This is the talk I gave at the Congress on Free Education, Software and Knowledge in Santo Domingo. Here you can download the whole talk in PDF format (see below for the original format) . During the talk, I discussed the following topics:

• What is software anyway?
• Do computers and Internet unite or divide?
• Do they help educate and empower, or do they divide and estrange?
• What is the contribution of Universities to the effects of these technologies? What could it be?

and gives some general guidelines on how to deal with the related problems.

Note: The original, editable slides in OpenDocument format are not online simply to save bandwidth, because that file is much bigger than the PDF version. If you need the other file, just contact me at marco - at - digifreedom - dot - net.

The goal of the first conference about Free Software and Knowledge in Santo Domingo was to "promote and spread the philosophy of Free software, education and knowledge in the Dominican Republic, among all who are concerned about the social, economic and scientific development of Santo Domingo". In this context, I gave a talk about "Computers and Internet: sources of social exclusion or engines of education and human development?".

Besides its official website, general coverage of the event is available (in Spanish) on Hoy Digital and El Nuevo Diario.

these are the paper and talk I wrote for the Italian National Conference on Free Software in Bologna.

1. Report from Quito: a look at Free Software and Free Knowledge among Catholics and other communities in latin America and what other Free Software advocates may learn from them
2. Report from Quito, summary

Feeback from participants to the Conference:

M. Grillini: "very interesting talk, especially when explaining localization of Free SW in Quechua, to preserve local culture, and the interest of Salesians in Free SW for ethical and cultural reasons"

(if you need the original OpenDocument versions of the paper and slides, just email me at marco, @ digifreedom . net)

On Monday, april 20th, 2009 at 8pm, VIS hosts a meeting on a very particular topic which is becoming more and more important: the correlation between all cultures - in a multicultural and intercultural perspective - and individual rights in a society in which the Internet has given us new freedoms but has also created new forms of exclusion. These issues will be explained by Marco Fioretti.

Almost 70% of released inmates end up returning to prison. A new project uses gaming and cooperative development techniques inspired by Open Source software to train ex-inmates for personal and family life.

Report on how Free Software is used or learned in seven different schools across Italy. Defined as full of "good, solid observations and discussion".